Global English

     In the last century, there have been many advances in communication technology. Technology makes it possible to communicate with people all over the world. People around the world can receive news about other countries, and learn about other cultures and people. Turn on the TV and watch the news. Local people are being interviewed in East Asia, in the Balkans, or in Africa. And they are telling us in English what is happening in their communities. English is becoming the language used to communicate around the world.

     Although English is used around the world, it is not the most common native language (language spoken at home). There are about 372 million native English speakers in the world. About 5700 million people speak a native language other than English. The native language spoken by the most people in the world is Chinese. After Chinese, Hindi and Urdu have the second most speakers, followed by English. Spanish and Arabic have almost as many native speakers as English. Even in the United States, Spanish and Chinese are the native languages for many people.

     In many countries, English is spoken as a second language. It is used for business and in government. English is the official language of government in more than 75 countries. Even the European Central Bank has English as its official language. In India, English is very widely used. Indian English has many special words, though, and there are dictionaries of Indian English. Some countries have even developed a special kind of English that is hard for other speakers of English to understand. For example, there is Spanglish (English and Spanish), Singlish (Singaporean English) and Taglish (spoken in the Philippines).

     English is the most common language used on the Internet, but this is changing. Currently, about 80% of what is on the Internet is in English. In 1999, about 54% of Internet users were native English speakers. However, non-native English speakers are the fastest growing group of new Internet users. As the use of the Internet grows around the world, other languages will be used more and more. But English will still be the language most often used to communicate between speakers of other languages, especially in business .